


A High School Memory

by Heavenly_Pearl



Series: Spirit of Fire and Other Side Stories [7]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 10:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heavenly_Pearl/pseuds/Heavenly_Pearl
Summary: A teenaged Hino Keitaro and Uchizawa Minoru discuss girls, school, and their plans for the future. A side story to "Spirit of Fire".





	A High School Memory

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: “Sailor Moon” belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.
> 
> AUTHOR’S NOTES: Surprise! It’s been almost nine years since I wrote anything SOF-related, but this flashback to a teenaged Minoru and Keitaro just randomly popped in my head about a week ago, and I just had to write it. Hope you enjoy!

         Minoru had not stopped smiling for the past twenty-four hours. The moment he had been waiting for what felt like almost his entire life had finally happened and he was eager to tell his best friend the news.

         “It’s about time you got here,” he said upon answering the door when the bell rang.

         Confused, Keitaro looked down at his wrist. “We did agree on two o’clock, right? It’s only one fifty-three according to my watch.”

         “Details, details. Just come in already.”     

         He yanked Keitaro inside the house and practically threw a pair of guest slippers at him.

         “Oh, hello, Keitaro-kun,” Minoru’s mother said with a smile, wiping her hands on her apron as she exited the kitchen. “Minoru didn’t mention you were visiting today.”

         Keitaro bowed, polite as always. “Good afternoon, Uchizawa-san. I hope I’m not imposing. Minoru-kun and I are going to work on our project for history class.”

         “No, of course not. You know you’re always welcome here. I’m afraid I don’t have any snacks prepared, though…”

         “We don’t need anything, Kaa-san,” Minoru said. “We’ll be too busy working to eat. Right?” He nudged Keitaro in the side, mentally begging him to play along.

         “R-Right. I just ate lunch about an hour ago, so I don’t need anything. Please don’t go through any trouble on my account.”

         “If you’re certain…”

         “We are!” Minoru said, grabbing Keitaro by the elbow and pulling him toward the staircase. “And please don’t interrupt us during our studies. We need to concentrate.”

         “It’s good to hear you taking schoolwork seriously for once, Minoru-kun,” a pleased Keitaro said as they climbed up the stairs. “I thought I was going to have to do the whole project all—"

         “Yeah, yeah, I’m turning over a new leaf or something. Just hurry it up.” From his spot behind him, Minoru gave Keitaro a light push forward. “You’re such a slowpoke.”

          When they finally reached Minoru’s bedroom, Keitaro kneeled down at the low table in the center of the room and began unpacking his heavy book bag while Minoru looked out into the hallway, making certain his nosy mother hadn’t followed them upstairs. If his parents found out he had spent yesterday afternoon at his girlfriend Rika’s house instead of the library like he told them, he could forget about having any kind of social life for the rest of high school.

         “Okay, what is going on with you?” Keitaro asked. “You’re acting like you expect the police to show up at any moment.”

         “No, just Kaa-san, but I think we’re in the clear.” Breathing a sigh of relief, Minoru closed the door and took a seat on the edge of his bed. “So, uh, I finally did it,” he announced, scratching the side of his nose.

         “Did what?”

         Minoru resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Despite being the top student in their class, Keitaro could be surprisingly dense sometimes. “You know, _it_.”

         “Oh, that.” Keitaro flipped through the pages of their history textbook, barely glancing up as he started writing the opening paragraph of their report. “Congratulations.”

         Flopping down on his bed, Minoru frowned and began tossing the baseball he found on the nightstand back-and-forth between his hands. “Is that all you have to say?” He hadn’t expected Keitaro to throw a party or anything like that, but some enthusiasm would have been nice. It wasn’t everyday his best friend became a man, after all. “Aren’t you even the least bit interested in how it went?”

         Sighing, Keitaro set down his pencil and turned to give Minoru his full attention. “Okay, how was it?”

         “Honestly? Good, but kinda weird,” he confessed, setting the ball down on the mattress. “And it didn’t last very long.” Rolling over on his side, he asked, “How long do you think it’s supposed to last?” Rika said she hadn’t minded, but Minoru had a feeling she had been disappointed by how quickly things had ended. He didn’t even have a chance to make her feel good.

         “Why are you asking me?”

         Minoru shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re smart?”

         “You’re smart, too, when you want to be,” Keitaro said, turning back to the table. “Speaking of which, are you going to help me at all with this report, or was everything you said downstairs just an act?”

         With a dismissive wave of his hand, Minoru said, “You look like you have it under control.” Knowing Keitaro, he would just go back and rewrite everything he wrote, anyway.

         “Fine, I’ll write the report as long as you make the display.”

         “Deal,” he said, moving down on the floor to work on the poster. Making the display was the least he could do for their group project.

         Besides, he had a favor to ask and wanted Keitaro to be in a good mood.

         “You know, Rika-chan has this friend…” Minoru began a few minutes later, trying to sound casual as possible. “She’s one of the top students in her class, and she’s pretty cute, too. Definite sexy librarian potential.”

         Keitaro gave him a look over the rims of his glasses, seeing right through him. “Minoru-kun, I don’t need your help getting a girlfriend.”

         “Of course you do. How else are you going to meet one? Certainly not at school.” They both attended a prestigious private boys’ school – not Minoru’s first choice high school by any means, but his father and older brother were alumni, so his parents had expected him to carry on the family tradition.

          “I’m not interested at the moment,” Keitaro said, frowning. “I need to concentrate on my studies so I can get accepted into Tokyo University like Uncle Wataru.”

         Minoru let out a loud, frustrated groan. Sometimes the aspiring politician could be such a square. “Keitaro-kun, we just took our high school entrance exams, like, five minutes ago. I don’t even want to think about college entrance exams for the next two years. Can’t we just enjoy high school life for a little while?”

         Looking up from the report, Keitaro pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Two years is too late if you want to pass Toudai’s exam. We need to start preparing now.”

         “We? I’m not even sure I want to go to Toudai,” he admitted. “My folks forced me to attend St. Luke’s, but in exchange, they said they’ll let me choose whatever college I want.”

         “You’re too good at math to go to some party school.”

         “Geez, you sound just like my old man. I have no desire to be a mathematician.” Just because he happened to be a whiz with numbers didn’t mean he actually enjoyed the subject. At least not to the extent that Minoru wanted to make it his career.

         “Then what do you want to be?” Keitaro asked, returning his attention back to his work.

         “Someone rich who sleeps with lots of women and drives a cool car.”

         “Be serious.”

         “I am. Hey, maybe I’ll get a job at one of those host clubs.” Minoru tossed aside his marker and rolled over on his back, hands folded behind his head as he considered the idea. Being able to drink and flirt with women while working seemed like a great way to make a living, and he wouldn’t even need to go to college. “I think I’d make a pretty good host. Or maybe I’ll just become a high-class gigolo.”

         “You’re going to have to last a lot longer than you did the first time if you want to make any money doing that,” Keitaro said in a rare moment of snark.

         Reaching up, Minoru grabbed a pillow from off his bed and threw it at his so-called best friend, missing by a good margin. “Oh, shut up. I’m going to get better at it.” He’d like to see how long Keitaro would last the first time he saw a naked woman in the flesh.

         “Well, what if you don’t? What’s Plan B?”

         Minoru shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno.” He’d never really thought about it. Not like Keitaro, who had almost his entire life planned from the age of ten. “Business exec, I guess?” he said. “They make a lot of money.”

         “Toudai has an excellent business program.”

         “Okay, okay, I’ll put Toudai on my short list,” he promised, flipping back over to resume working on the poster and returning to the subject he had brought up earlier. “So, about Ito-san…?”

         “I already told you I wasn’t interested,” Keitaro said, sounding annoyed.

         “You haven’t even met her yet.”

         “What’s with this sudden urge to play matchmaker? Just because you had sex doesn’t mean I want to, especially not with some random girl I don’t even know.”

         Minoru shook his head, as always dumbfounded by Keitaro’s apparent lack of interest in the opposite sex – or even the same sex, for that matter. “Sometimes I think you’d be more suited to the life of a priest than a politician,” he said. “But, seriously, Rika-chan won four tickets to the new James Bond movie that is coming out and she thought it would be fun if we went with another couple, that’s all.

         “You should have just said that in the first place.”

         “Then you’ll go?” Rika would be pleased. He promised he would fix her friend up with a nice boy, and there were few guys he knew who were nicer than Keitaro. Maybe he would even hit it off with Miss Ito. It would Keitaro some good to focus on something else besides his studies all the time.

         “It’s just a movie?”

         “Maybe lunch, too.”

         “And the girl is cute?”

         “Just your type.”

         “I don’t have a type, Minoru-kun,” he said.

         Minoru rolled his eyes. As if he was in any position to be picky. “She’s beautiful and smart, okay? What else could you want?”

         Tapping his pencil eraser against the top of the table, Keitaro considered it for a few seconds longer. “Then…fine. I suppose one date wouldn’t hurt,” he agreed.

         Minoru grinned. “That’s all I ask.”


End file.
